What worries this diverse array of opinion leaders is captured in the story told about Steve Jobs’s reply when President Obama asked why Apple had located a plant in China rather than in the United States. After noting that Apple needed 30,000 engineers to run the factory, Jobs said, “You can’t find that many in America to hire.”

So how is America doing at turning out STEM majors? Any signs of significant improvement? As the two charts below suggest, no.

The total number of engineers has risen in recent years, but it remains below the peak number reached in the early 1980s (Chart 1). But when you take into account the fact the number of college students has grown sharply over the past three decades—in large part because of demographic trends—the relative number of undergraduates majoring in engineering has declined (Chart 2). Meanwhile, computer science majors have followed a boom-and-bust cycle over the past three decades, no doubt reflecting the boom-and-bust cycle in the high-tech industry.

So if political leaders from both political parties are banging the drum on the importance of producing more graduates in STEM majors, why aren’t we seeing more? It’s not that entering college students aren’t trying STEM majors. They are. It’s that once they get a taste of college-level STEM work, many of them opt for different majors.

In all, we have three decades of experience that suggests that hosting science fairs and praising the virtues of STEM subjects isn’t likely to produce more STEM majors. Changing the trends in these two charts will require investing significantly more in grants and financial aid for students who chose to major in STEM subjects. That will cost a lot of money, something that cash-strapped local, state, and federal governments don’t have in abundance. But it is the kind of investment the United States will need to make if it wants to stay competitive.